Startup

Roman Gapachilo worked in service IT for over 20 years and seemed to know the industry down to the smallest detail. But at some point, that wasn’t enough. He left the large service business Intellias, where he had worked for 7 years, and headed the Ukrainian defense startup DoD Solution, which develops computers and software for autonomous drones. dev.ua talked to him about this transition, the risks, 1 million euros of investment, hiring, humor during war, and why everything is much simpler in defense: you either do it or you lose.

Ukrainian military and former system administrator Oleksiy Halkovich created the Memessage application—a tool that allows you to animate correspondence and turn it into a video with the most realistic chat behavior possible. The development became a way for him to «escape from reality» during his service — and at the same time grew into a full-fledged product. We tell you how humor helps keep your mind sharp and who Memessage can be useful to.

Iran is a country cut off from Google Play, Visa, AWS, and international venture capital. These restrictions have forced local entrepreneurs to build their own digital ecosystem from scratch.

Volodymyr Yushchenko, a 23-year-old from Kyiv, is developing an app called SlixOne that helps people find company for a vacation in real time. The project is designed as an alternative to traditional dating services, focusing on going to bars or going for walks together. We talked with Volodymyr about how the idea for the application came about, how much money was invested, and at what stage of development.

Imagine the morning scene: you open your closet, look at dozens of things — and again catch yourself thinking that you have nothing to wear. Even though in reality your wardrobe is full. It’s just that most people wear the same combinations for years. Ukrainian developers decided to transfer this task to artificial intelligence. They created the smart.outfit.ai application — a «pocket stylist» that analyzes the items in your wardrobe, suggests new outfits, and helps you combine clothes right on your smartphone. dev.ua talked to the startup’s founder, Dmytro Balyuk, and analyst Kateryna Kravtsova about how their AI works, why hundreds of gigabytes of clothing images are needed to train models, how much the product development cost, and why the team does not plan to attract venture capital.